Navigator of the Seas

E. Jackson

Age: 52

Occupation:Mortgage Banker

Number of Cruises: 1

Cruise Line: Royal Caribbean

Ship: Navigator of the Seas

Sailing Date: January 8th, 2005

Itinerary: Western Caribbean

This was my first cruise and I wanted to do as much online research as possible
so I could enjoy the experience and become familiar with the ship before
boarding. I visited the Royal Caribbean website, reviewed the ship's layout and
read every cruise review reported on this website (Cruisereviews.com) from the
last two years. The main reason for this cruise was work related (for my
husband). We had the honor of hosting 625 other passengers as part of our group.
As a rule, I am not too enthused about these annual business trips to various
destinations, but I was excited about the cruise as I had heard so much about
cruising throughout my life and it sounded like such a romantic trip.

We spent the evening prior to our cruise departure at Miami's Hotel
International. We weren't impressed, and it was very expensive. I won't tell you
what we found in my husband's breakfast fruit cup (room service) but suffice it
to say he stopped eating. The good thing about the hotel is that it is very
close to the pier where the Navigator is docked. Royal Caribbean provided us
with a shuttle bus and took care of our luggage. When we arrived at the
terminal, it was crowded, but the embarkation, customs and boarding process was
pretty smooth, taking only about 50 minutes. We were issued our SeaPasses, which
really made any subsequent purchases on the ship very easy.

We found our way to our balconied stateroom (#1688) easily and thought it was
plenty big enough for the two of us. The bathroom is small, but we didn't spend
more time than necessary in there. Our shower had curved shower doors which I
had read about in previous reviews on this site. The water was always hot (very
hot) and the water pressure was pretty good too. We had one incident the morning
after we left Labadee when the hot water turned rusty, or reddish-brown in
color, but that passed as more water was used. We never received an explanation
of what that was about. The bed is quite another story. Our twin beds had been
moved together, and a sort of "spine" had been run down the center to form one
bed. It was most uncomfortable. Luckily the gentle rocking of the ship put us to
sleep quite easily, as long as we each stayed on our own side of the bed. The
mattress is no more than 4-5 inches thick and sits on a slab-like platform
configuration. The pillows had a faint bad odor to them, so I slept with a towel
on mine for the duration of the trip, but I just may be overly sensitive to
smells. On that subject, the ship allows smoking in most areas, including the
staterooms, so the cigarette and cigar smoke wafted quite readily throughout the
hallways and common areas.

A word about the safety drill that occurs at 4:30pm the first afternoon that you
board. It was very confusing and not at all efficient. I would dread to see what
would happen if it was a real emergency. There are many staff members placed
throughout the decks, but few of them spoke English well enough to answer
questions, or they said they were "new" and that they were unfamiliar with the
ship. Eventually we all ended up where we were supposed to be (Assembly
Stations) but there was no attendance taken to be sure that all passengers were
accounted for.

Regarding the food - there is plenty of it. We ordered room service on 3
breakfast occasions and they were prompt and called when they were on their way.
The food, however, was dreadful, which is odd because the food in the dining
room (The Nutcracker) was generally good to excellent. We decided to stop
ordering room service unless it was for cold cereal, milk and juice. The coffee
throughout the ship is dreadfully strong. Go to the Cafe Promenade where you can
cut the coffee with hot water and prepare your own blend. Speaking of the Cafe
Promenade, the small sandwiches and pastries there are great and it's open 24
hours. I was under the impression that there was a midnight buffet each evening
(again, only my impression) but there were only 2. We missed the first one
because we didn't know about it and we viewed the 2nd one. Our group was
assigned to the 2nd dinner seating each evening and I think that an early dinner
would be more conducive to attending shows, bars and seeing more of what the
ship has to offer. The late dinner lasted until approximately 10:30 pm each
night and by that time (due to our business obligations) we were too tired to do
much of anything but return to our room and get to sleep.

I found that most venues on the ship closed very early. I was under the
impression that the ship was open all night. (though I hadn't read that
anywhere) The only places open late were the Dungeon nightclub (catering to the
18-30 year old crowd) the Casino (which is smoke filled) and the Cafe Promenade.
It would have been nice if the Cosmopolitan Club was open later than 1 am. A
nice surprise was the Two Poets Lounge, with guitar minstrel James Blakemore. He
would sing any song requested and even encouraged members of the audience to go
up to his small stage and sing with him.

We also attended the Ice Dancin' show and the Karaoke Idol contest which were
enjoyable. Many of our co-cruisers (our tour group) went to the comedy shows and
said they were fabulous. Because we had "official duties" my husband and I
didn't attend as many shows as we would have like to.

I'd like to say a few words about the ship's staff. Everyone was friendly,
saying hello each time we passed them, but we never met our cabin steward and
saw our cabin attendant only twice. The dining room staff was pleasant, but
there were not the "great bonds" formed between us and our waiter, ass't waiter
nor our head waiter, that I had read about in other reviews. Our waiter, Sam,
was attentive and happy but the others were pretty invisible.

The only seriously negative event to report was the method used to request tips
for our Cabin Attendants, Head Waiter, Waiter and Assistant Waiter. The "strong
urging" began on Wednesday with "suggested amounts" to tip noted in the Cruise
Compass daily newsletter. On Thursday, we received vouchers and envelopes
reminding us of how well we were treated. Our large group's gratuities were
included in the fare, so I found this bid for more money particularly annoying.
It would have been nice if we could have fooled ourselves into thinking that our
good service was because the staff prided itself in doing a good job, but
instead we were made very aware that it was simply for tips. These tip requests
repeated themselves until we disembarked.

With regard to the ship itself... The Navigator of the Seas is simply beautiful.
The artwork on each floor landing (near the elevators and staircases) and
throughout each venue is stunning. There are glass blown pieces, oils, and
sculptures throughout the vessel. I would have been happy just to tour the ship
and look at the art! The ship is well maintained and clean.

I visited the ShipShape workout area and found that the treadmills and other
machines were in good working order and if you scheduled your visit wisely, it
was never so busy that you had to wait. I didn't visit the spa, but other guests
on our tour said that the treatments were very expensive and would not recommend
them.

A short note regarding the ports we visited... Labadee, Ocho Rios, Jamaica,
Cozumel and Grand Cayman. My husband and I only left the ship at Labadee. I
wasn't impressed (I was more depressed) by this stop and although our
co-cruisers did visit many of the other ports, the consensus was that they were
saddened, hounded, mistreated and generally unhappy with what they experienced.
The poverty is overwhelming and the begging is incessant. One of our guest
actually had to hand over her wristwatch when the $70 she had in her wallet
"wouldn't cover" the cost of some trinket she accidentally broke while visiting
a small shop in Cozumel. The vendor followed her all the way back to the ship
badgering her for more money. That should not be a cruise memory for anyone.

Disembarkation was easy. We were given color coded luggage tags on Friday
evening. We needed to be out of our staterooms by 8am on Saturday so our luggage
needed to be packed and left outside our doors by midnight Friday evening.
Remember to leave disembarkation clothing out for the next day! On Saturday
morning, after receiving our final bill and checking it for accuracy, we went
down to one of 3 "holding" areas and waited for our tag color to be called. The
entire process, including the wait was about 1 and a half hours. We then boarded
a shuttle bus (taxis are also readily available) and headed to Miami airport to
catch our flight back home.